EURO 2012 PREVIEW - UKRAINE

EUROS HISTORY – 2012 first appearance

ROUTE TO QUALIFICATION – Qualified as semi hosts

FIXTURES –

11 June 2012         Olympic Stadium, Kiev           Sweden

15 June 2012         Donbass Arena, Donetsk        France

19 June 2012         Donbass Arena, Donetsk        England

Manager – Oleh Blokhin

Captain – Andriy Shevchenko

           Antoniy Tomyschuk

Having never played in the euro championships, Ukraine have a date with destiny when they will feature for the first time in the 2012 edition on home soil led by a man who took them to the FIFA 06 quarter finals.

Go search through the internet and the things that strike are that there is not much of an illustrious history associated with this nation. Part of the illustrious Soviet Union until 1991, Ukraine played their first competitive match against Hungary on April 12 1992.

To Play or Not To Play : A Big Debate

As the blog title suggests , this isn't about Tevez refusing to come on as a substitute for Manchester City against Bayern Munich. So if you are looking out for some news on the already excessively hyped story you might be disappointed.

Comes a time when the fans start complaining of boring weekends due to international matches during a football season. Well, boring or not the players have to step on to the field once again as international players, be it for qualifiers , tournaments or meaningless friendlies. Add to this a new trend where a club team in between a full fledged season travels to the owner's home country to play a game(to appease the owners offcourse) with the manager stating that the trip will be beneficiary for his side to recover from the recent slump. Yes you are right. I am refereeing to Venky's Blackburn Rovers who are travelling to India to play against Pune FC which by far could be one of the most ridiculous decisions a team's management could have made in a season.